Bad writing in the LOTR movies

Hmmm... I agree somewhat. I still will love the films no matter what is said about them, but the dialogue is quite iffy in several places.
 
I think that you should take the movies for face value. Of course, I have been upset with people when they didn't know who Tom Bombadil was when claiming they knew EVERYTHING about Lord of the Rings. But one probably needs to keep in mind the fact that they are movies, where not all of the complexity of the book can be kept. Also, you'd be silly to expect more from something as many-layered as Lord of the Rings, or any of Tolkien's works for that matter.
 
I noticed that all your examples from FOTR, the most faithful to the books. Did you feel the same way about the other two? Any particular likes or dislikes?

Likes:
The Orcs. Not so much as individuals, more in their masses. The Moria sequence with the Orcs swarming over every available surface really emphasised their distance from other humanoid races.

Dislikes:
Faramir & Denethor. 'nuff said.
Dialogue. The worst dialogue would have been bad in any movie.
Gimli. I can almost hear the production meeting.
UNKNOWN STUDIO FUNCTIONARY: "We've got Legolas for the tweenies and teens, and Aragorn for the Twenty-somethings. Arwen works as love interest. Who are we going to use for comic relief? Merry and Pippin aren't in the main plot for long enough. I know, that Dwarf character; who was he?"

Condolences:
Elves; especially the older ones. How is anyone supposed to portray a being who took part in the fall from heaven? Or one who personally remembers a time equivalent to the foundation of the Egyptian empire?

I'd also question the notion that JRRT's dialogue would not work on screen. Compare readings from the King James with those from the Good News. The Royal Jim performs so much better. It's language written for speaking and I find JRRT to be very much an heir to this tradition of writing; especially his dialogue and poetry.

PJ et al had the Mise-en-scene handed to them on a plate and then took a pineapple to it. FoTR was the exception along with the battle scenes (bar Mumak surfing). I think it can, and will, be done better.
That said, these were the first serious attempt at a live action version. Jackson and his script writers had reason to belive they could write films better than JRRT. Their failures may represent a systemic failure of the Hollywood style rather than a failure of vision on the part of the movies' creative team. The economics of big-budget movie production often force artistic compromises (which directors had better pass off as their own judgement if they want more work) which rarely work to the advantage of the movie. It's the old dictum "Smart people will watch dumb movies, dumb people won't watch smart movies." If you want to maximise profit you have to maximise bums-on-seats. Not that these are dumb movies, but they could have been a whole lot smarter. Worse they could, in my opinion, have been smarter and still made nearly as much money.
[/rant]
 
i would have to agree that the writing was bad in large parts of TTT and RotK... FotR was consistently good, with only a few lines here and there that were ...odd.
Above all... there were a couple of things that grated... and i won't go into the faramir thing since its been said above. in FotR... i understand that Cate Blanchett was not available for long to complete her filming commitments, but deliberately closing off the chance that she would deliver her granddaughter to her futrue husband at the end of RotK was something that immediately annoyed me... Galadriel is by far my favourite of Tolkein's characters so i am biased in this instance.
Aside from this i found the vast majority of FotR to be at least good, if not great in parts.
TTT however is where things start to plummet into the abyss... The degradation of Frodo continues here as well as Faramir. Elijah Wood was perfect for Frodo. the perfect look, the right amount of acting ability, but his lines and the direction consistently point him toward the 'weak' hobbit who needs to be taken care of, who falls for the lies of Gollum, who needs rescuing because he's not strong enough. Not nearly enough is made of Frodo's strength of will in these films, and his strength is legendary when one knows his journey from the novels. (needless to say i am also a Frodo fan - though mostly through outrage at the injustice both Tolkein and PJ commit), and always resented the hobbits of the shire for shunning him once the journey concludes after SotS and Merry, Pippin and Sam get all the glory, yet it was Frodo (and Gollum) who saved middle earth, they had help getting there - yes, but in the end it was them).
Aragorn also takes a big slide in TTT. it can only be attributed to either Viggo's complete inability to master a SINGLE ACCENT throughout these films, or the poor realisation of his character and the strange lines he is given.
Elves at Helms Deep annoy me only by their presence, not what they do ... they are very visually appealling, and their consumate skill is put on display... though they do still die far too easily.
Legolas gets some extra screen time, and i have to say... i like the shield riding. An elf ninja... big question... How to make it abundantly clear how dangerous this slight looking elf is without making him more ninja like than brutal barbarian? And lets not forget, Legolas should be the most dangerous fighter of the fellowship, 4500 years of training is going to make killing easy for you.

RotK... OMG Aragorn falls entirely to pieces in this film. Killing the Mouth of Sauron, as mentioned, is the most heinous distortion of the character imaginable. No-one, especially not the supposedly "good-guys" would ever break the rules of parley. Aragorn seems like such a brute, that i half expected him to proceed to slaughter the entire army of mordor there and then on his own..(or at least try). Further, when trying to make him appear more noble, all they do is make him look weak. I'm not an Aragorn fan in any shape or form, but Return just made me hate him. the removal of Prince Imrahil was utterly despicable... and clearly done to make any comparisons with Aragorn impossible... a True Prince beside a Ragged Filthy Ranger from the North.
There are other parts equally as bad... but i haven't watched RotK for a while, so i won't add anything else specific... its the one out of the three that deserved the least acclaim, and yet won all its oscars... go figure???
 
Just to still in my bit of 'what the hell happened to?"; The Witch-King of Angor, chief of the Nazgul,lord of Minas Morgul and definately Saurons 'main man' and 'go-to guy'.

His big scene; they smash through the doors of Minas T. and he rides to to be confronted by Gandalf; despite the fact that the bad guys know by this time that they're dealing with the 'white' version, Big Black isn't in the least put off up a direct confrontation.

In the book this turns out to be a non-event as events transpire to keep them apart, but I really expected this bit to turn into a weapons/Force-fest given the earlier over-dramatisation of 'magic' but no...

As has been covered in earlier posts he didn't even get the big send off deserved...

Oh well, bring on Smaug....
 
There are other parts equally as bad... but i haven't watched RotK for a while, so i won't add anything else specific... its the one out of the three that deserved the least acclaim, and yet won all its oscars... go figure???

I think that RotK won the Oscars based on the merits of the trilogy as a whole, and in particular, FotR. FotR didn't get the Oscar nod because it was the first, and therefore the experiment was not yet done.

I still think that getting LotR to screen was a magnificent achievement, despite the obvious flaws. Someday, as with Bram Stoker's Dracula, someone will do a JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Probably not for 20 or 30 years or so, but someone will. However, will it be watchable as films for those who have not read it? That would be in the hands of the screenwriters and the director.
 
Yes there were lots of annoying changes in the films, what annoyed me most was that I couldn't see how they helped in the story-telling.
The changes to the characters of Farimir and Treebeard actually seemed to require more screen time than leaving them alone and every time Gimli did his comic sidekick thing it jerked me right out of the flow.

But my biggest disappointment, ( although I'm not sure it qualifies as bad writing ) was the Nazgul, they just weren't scary.
 

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